I went to open BS to enter some recipe info, and when I opened the program a screen popped up telling me that my copy of Beersmith was not activated. I entered my activation key and the program opened like it was opening for the first time. No recipes, no data, nothing from the previous year of entering info. I will back up religiously from now on but does anyone know a fix to get my info back? It was not synced to cloud or backed up externally. Am I screwed?
Beersmith files deleted-how to recover!!?
- Thread starter worthogg
- Start date
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
Look in your own files,like downloads or other files where you saved stuff. Recipe files are separate from the main program,but are stored where the program can retrieve them. The computer remembers your patterns for saving things & may've saved them in the odd personal file.
I think all recipes are stored in the file "Recipe.bsmx" and a backup in "Recipe2.bsmx" from what I can see in my system. Those files are in the BeerSmith2 installation folder, located wherever you installed to originally.
Do a search for that Recipe.bsmx file. It should be relatively large, even several MB, and the content is XML style. You can open them in Notepad or any other text editor or word processor.
Do a search for that Recipe.bsmx file. It should be relatively large, even several MB, and the content is XML style. You can open them in Notepad or any other text editor or word processor.
GrogNerd
mean old man
check your documents folder for the beersmith2 folder and try opening RECIPE#.bsmx where the # is a number from 1 to 5 (maybe more). try opening the latest dated one first, if that one doesn't contain your recipes and calendar, try the largest sized one
worked for me opening #4
worked for me opening #4
Yup. The one without a number is the current one. The indexed (numbered) files must be successive backups. I also have #1 through #5 of them.
ingchr1
Well-Known Member
This is one of the biggest problems with BS, it will overwrite your files on a new install or if you point the directory location to a location where you have existing files. It's happened to me more than once.
I backup my entire BS directory. If I need to do a fresh install, I install BS, then copy and paste my backup to the BS directory.
I backup my entire BS directory. If I need to do a fresh install, I install BS, then copy and paste my backup to the BS directory.
Wow, I thought the program was pretty convoluted but not quite that stupid. Total FUBAR points given.
If luck is with you, the Recipe1 - Recipe5 files (backups) may still be intact. Just copy them somewhere save and then rename the latest back to Recipe.bsmx.
Hopefully it works that way.
Oh, another thought, contact Brad Smith (the BeerSmith developer) he's a really nice and helpful guy. He would know how to restore the settings and perhaps he can fix the installer so it won't override with empties in the next release. I'd consider that a big bug.
worthogg
Well-Known Member
Hey, thanks for all the advice everyone! I have been busy with work and haven't responded as quickly as I would have liked. I'm about to go into the files to see what I can see. Hopefully something works or I'm back to square one with all my recipes for the last year. The only reason I'm not pulling my hair out right now is that I had a hard copy printout of my house IPA that I've been working on for the last six months. Just got it dialed in and had printed out brew steps a couple of weeks ago when I did my last batch. Somehow I got lucky with that one. Thanks again and I'll post what I find...
worthogg
Well-Known Member
YOU GUYS ROCK!!! I got all my recipes back! I am so stoked right now. Thanks Island Lizard and everyone else who chimed in. I found Recipe.bsmx and opened it in the new Beersmith version I just installed. Worked like a charm. So thankful for HBT! It's scheduled backups from now on...Thanks again!!
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